Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1106

1036 institute, he was a member of the cadet battalion and a considerable part of his time was spent in the Confederate service. Soon after leaving the university of Virginia he began the reading of law at his home, and qualified himself for the practice of the profession. He was licensed in the fall of 1869, and since that time has devoted himself to the profession closely and with marked success, attaining a prominent position among the lawyers of the State. For a number of years he served as a member of the board of visitors of the Miller manual labor school, of Albemarle county, and as a member of the board of visitors of the university of Virginia, but had never held nor had been a candidate for any political office, State or national, until on December 19, 1893, he was elected United States senator for the term commencing March 4, 1895, to succeed Hon. Eppa Hunton. His term of service will expire March 3, 1901.

Matthew Fontaine Maury, a Virginian, one of the most distinguished of American philosophers, whose discoveries and genius made clear the feasibility of the Atlantic cables, and who was hailed by Humboldt as the founder of a new science, faithfully adhered to his native State during the Confederate era, and rendered important services to the Confederate government. He was born January 16, 1806, in Spottsylvania county, son of Richard and Diana (Minor) Maury. His descent is from a Huguenot refugee, Matthew Maury, who married a great-granddaughter of John de La Fontaine, of the French court, who suffered death because of his religion, in the reign of Charles IX. He was reared from age five in Tennessee, entered the United States navy in his sixteenth year, and made his first cruise in the ship which returned General Lafayette to France. He subsequently made a voyage around the world, and, after various service, published "Maury's Navigation," which was adopted as a naval text-book. He was promoted lieutenant in 1837, and, soon after, met with a painful accident which disabled him for several years and caused lameness for life. During his period of disability he maintained great literary activity, was the cause of reforms in the navy, directed the gauging of the Mississippi, and advocated the connection of the great lakes with the Mississippi by canal. Beginning in 1842, he created the naval observatory at Washington, of which he became the head, and instituted the tabulation of material for charts of the sea. His first chart was received with doubt, but was soon proved to be accurate and invaluable, and his system has since been applied to all seas. He established the system of deep-sea sounding and unfolded the mechanism of the oceans in his immortal work, "The Physical Geography of the Sea. (1855)" Recognition came to him rapidly. He received orders of knighthood from many nations, and foreign academies of science hastened to bestow their honors. When Virginia seceded he promptly resigned his rank in the Federal navy, and offered his services to his native State. He served as one of the council of three, chosen by governor Letcher at this crisis, and, after the State forces were incorporated in the Confederate army, he was commissioned commander, C. S. N., and later was sent to Europe as a naval agent of the Confederacy, in which capacity he purchased and fitted out Confederate cruisers. At the close of the war he went to Mexico and was appointed to the cabinet of